Races of the Southern Kingdoms

The Southern Kingdoms are a loose coalition of dozens of small empires and city states.

SOUTHRONS are humans, part of a great wave of migration to the North: explorers and traders and adventurers, fleeing the teeming cities and grinding poverty for freedom and opportunity. The Southrons are currently ascendant in the North, having defeated the hobgoblin empire and established a series of thriving settlements along the coastline. The Southrons are organized into small landholds administered by a Lord or Lady. The Southrons are notable for bringing their religion into the North, a single church consisting of two sister orders: one representing Law and the other Chaos. The orders are military organizations, composed of clerics, defenders and advocates of the faith.

TIEFLINGS are a mysterious, insular race, often appearing much like very attractive, slender humans with fair skin and curly red hair. They wear distinctive robes of purple and gold, with birettas atop their heads. Derisively called hellborn or hellions or even worse by others, they prefer to be known as “the Friends of Men” or simply as “the Friends.” The Friends are valued lawyers, bankers, and merchants of all manner of goods and services—eager to assist with any need or desire, but rather insistent about the minutia of contracting.

HALFLINGS are a pleasant, gregarious folk the size of human children. Like their Southron fellows, the halflings moved to the North for adventure and freedom.

ORCS were introduced to the North as slaves to the Southrons, bred by the humans to fight the native goblins. The orcs thrived in their new land, and the orcish armies overwhelmed the hobgoblin defenses. But the orcs soon turned upon their masters and deserted in great numbers. Now several orc tribes, all descended from the slave armies, roam the north. Although today only the most disreputable of Southron lords employ orc troops, small groups of orcs and half-orcs are not an uncommon sight in human towns and villages.

OGRES followed the men and orcs into the North, and quickly established lairs in the unsettled hills and valleys just beyond the edge of civilization. From these mean settlements they prey on humans and any other intelligent creatures they happen upon.